KMDA plan for Ruby skywalk to address pedestrian crossover woes on EM Bypass
Telegraph | 13 February 2025
An aerial circular pathway around 18ft above the ground, just below the Metro viaduct, with five entry-exit points.
That is the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA)’s plan to address pedestrian crossover woes at the busy Ruby rotary on EM Bypass.
The plan is part of a report sent to the urban development department.
The diameter of the circular pathway will be close to 60m and the skywalk will be connected to the Hemanta Mukhopadhyay station of the New Garia-Airport Metro line (Orange Line).
If the plan works, Metro passengers would not have to come down on the road to cross the Bypass.
The exit and entry points will have escalators and the estimated construction cost is ₹84 crore, the report says.
“The report containing details of the skywalk project at the Ruby rotary has been sent to the urban development and municipal affairs department for administrative and financial sanction,” said a senior KMDA official.
“The urban development and municipal affairs department will send it to the finance department for approval. We are ready to start work soon after the finance department sanctions the project. The clearance from the finance department is the most crucial step for the project to take off.”
Mooted in 2021, the project has been on the back burner for some time now. In December 2023, the KMDA briefed the then commissioner of Kolkata Police about how it could ease pedestrian movement at one of the busiest intersections along EM Bypass.
Nothing had moved since.
In November 2024, discussions about the project resumed at a meeting of the District Road Safety Committee at the police headquarters in Lalbazar in the presence of police commissioner Manoj Kumar Verma.
The joint police commissioner overseeing traffic movement brought up the project for discussion with senior KMDA officials.
“Ruby is one of the busiest crossings with heavy pedestrian movement. There are hospitals, schools, an industrial estate and several housing complexes in the vicinity,” said Yeilwad Shrikant Jagannathrao, deputy police commissioner, traffic.
“The pedestrian count will go up further once Metro (Orange Line) becomes fully operational. The skywalk is a crucial project at the rotary and so the issue was brought up at the last meeting.”
Streamlining pedestrian movement has remained a challenge for the police for the last couple of years. Over 40 per cent of the people who died on Calcutta’s roads in 2023 were pedestrians, a Kolkata Traffic Police report said.
“The skywalk will be connected to the Metro station and the entry-exit points have been conceived considering the pattern of pedestrian movement. For instance, there will be an entry near the autorickshaw stand adjoining Vivanta hotel,” a KMDA official said. “The idea is to prevent pedestrian movement across the Ruby intersection.”
Senior officers said a few changes had been suggested to the initial design of the proposed rotary.
“In the initial plan, the proposed pillars were encroaching on the road space. We suggested the pillars be repositioned so the traffic on EM Bypass is least hit,” a senior Kasba traffic guard officer said.
“One of the proposed pillars would have come in the way of free left turn of vehicles approaching the Bypass from the Rashbehari connector and heading towards Science City. We suggested tweaking that a bit.”